


The Monk And The Demon

by traumschwinge



Series: The Monk And The Demon [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Character Death, Curses, Demon Erik Lehnsherr, Everyone Dies in this one, Faustian Bargain, Fiery Death, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Brother Charles had known what he'd agreed to before he started to copy that old tome, he never would have done so much as to even touch it. But he had agreed and he was determined to finish his work. The only problem were the sweet whispers of a demon in his ears...</p><p>The beginning and the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monk And The Demon

The smell of sulfur suddenly filled the air. Brother Charles didn't even bother to look up. He was used to this by now. Ever since he'd started copying this old pagan tome for some rich bastard of a lord who payed a nice sum to the monastery for it, he had received visits by this hallucination. At least, that was what Brother Charles called it. He refused to acknowledge the existence of humanoid demons. It was so much easier to ignore things that one didn't acknowledge the existence of.

“Charles,” a deep, soft voice purred into his ear. Brother Charles refused to react to it and stubbornly continued with the copying. There was no one but him in the scriptorium. All the voices he heard where his own thoughts in disguise, sent to him from below.

“Still ignoring me, Charles?” the voice continued. It took Brother Charles a lot of will power not to twitch when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. No, not a hand, he corrected his thoughts. Just the illusion of the feeling of a hand. There were no demons but the ones in people's heads.

“You know your life could be so much more interesting,” the voice continued. It was so close now that the demon's breath tingled against his ear. This time, Brother Charles couldn't suppress a shiver. “Good, Charles, I see you're aware of my presence after all.” The hand on his shoulder started to wander down Charles' back. In a moment of panic, Charles reached for the heavy wooden cross on his chest, holding it close and murmuring a prayer to ward off hellish creatures.

The demon merely chuckled. “Oh, no, Charles, I'm not going anywhere,” he said, still close enough that Brother Charles could feel every single breath the demon drew. “You called me and therefore I will stay.”

“I did not call you, fiend,” Brother Charles exclaimed, slamming his quill down on the desk so hard ink splattered everywhere. Brother Charles was just thankful that nothing got onto the books, neither the original tome nor on his half finished work. “For what reason should I have called you?”

“That's what I'm wondering myself, little monk,” the demon chuckled. His fingers were tracing the outlines of Brother Charles' spine as he spoke. “For what reason should you have called me?”

Brother Charles gripped the cross tighter, so tight he was almost afraid it would splinter. “Don't touch me,” he hissed. He turned to face the demon, effectively cutting off his access to his back in the process.

Facing the demon, however, had been a severe mistake. Brother Charles had been hearing the voice of the demon and feeling his touches for weeks now, yet he had never turned to look at the fiend. As it turned out, the demon was even more handsome than Brother Charles would have guessed, had he wasted any thought on wondering about the demon possessing a pagan book.

Not only had the demon a very handsome face that seemed to be all sharp angles and hard edges but he was also wearing indecent clothing that showed off far more of his lean body than necessary. It was far enough from being decent that it might approach decency from the other way round. The neckline of the shirt he—and Charles had not once doubted the gender of this demon—was wearing was low enough that it was closer to being a navelline than anything else. And the way it hung loosely made it look like it would come off the fiend's shoulders with the smallest movement. Brother Charles didn't even dare to think about the demon's trousers, for they were tight as skin and left nothing about him to the imagination of the observer. Womenfolk would get pregnant just from looking.

Brother Charles directed his glance back up to the demon's face. It was topped by a shock of sandy blond hair. He hadn't want to search out his gaze, but the fiend must have searched his, as they had found each other and staring at the dark pits where humans would have had their eyes, Brother Charles felt as if he was lost in a star- and moonless night. He could barely remember how to breathe.

“Do you enjoy what you're seeing, pitiful little monk?” the demon purred. Brother Charles swallowed hard as the fiend led one of his hands to stroke down his own chest, as a prostitute sometimes would advertise herself.

“You—you can not seduce me, for you have nothing that I would desire,” Brother Charles hissed. He took up his quill again and started copying anew. “So stop your fruitless attempts to tempt me. There is nothing that I would desire.”

The demon chuckled. “My, you're chatty today,” he said, his tone slow and predatory. Brother Charles could hear him walk around, but he didn't bother enough anymore to look up from the tome. If he hurried as fast as he could dare without risking mistakes, he could be done with this tome in another fortnight and he was very willing to risk it if that would mean to be rid of the demon sooner. Every day less would be enough, really.

“I wonder,” the demon went on, muttering to himself. “If there really isn't anything you'd desire. I could grant you great many a thing.” When Brother Charles looked up at the tome to read the next line, the demon was comfortably sitting next to it. “I could grant you strength to crush your enemies and take over the country, maybe enough charisma to go with it so you wouldn't even have to stop before all of Christianity belonged to you.”

“What makes you think it's power I desire?” Brother Charles asked. He paused for a moment before he started with the next paragraph.

“So you want wealth?” the demon asked. “I could grant this to you as well. More gold than you every could imagine.”

“What would a monk like me do with all that money?” Brother Charles said flatly. “I don't desire wealth, either.”

“No,” the demon was chuckling again. “You desire something else entirely. The ability to help the poor, the sick, you want to heal their wounds and tend to their sicknesses. You want to give the strays a home and the lost guidance. This, all of it, I can not grant you.”

Brother Charles snorted. He couldn't believe he was arguing with a demon. “Then why, in God's name, do you even bring this up if you can not grant me what would tempt me into a pact with you?” Maybe, he could hurry it up enough to be finished by the next Sunday, if he'd only stopped to pray and eat a meal a day.

The demon smirked. He leaned over the tome and brought his face close to the monk's. “I can grant you more time on this earth to gain wisdom and knowledge and I can grant you magic,” the demon whispered. “All you need so you can learn whats necessary to fulfill your desires.”

Brother Charles swallowed hard. His hand had left the cross a long while ago. “What would I have to do?” he whispered back. He didn't dare speak up. He couldn't believe what he was doing.

“Steal the book, Charles,” the demon whispered. Never in his life had Charles heard something as sweet as the demon's voice. “Steal my book, Charles, and keep it to yourself for the rest of your life. Never loose it after our pact for you will die and I will find a new master to serve with time. Steal it, Charles, and I'll even grant you the wisdom and knowledge of pandemonium. Steal it and never look back to your life as a lowly monk for all eternity could be yours.”

 

**~*~**

 

Charles had believed it when the demon, when Erik had told him their pact would be for an eternity. It had been, for almost two hundred years. And he couldn't think of a time he had used the demon's gift for unjustified evil. He had lived a restless life—or even more than one, wandering throughout Europe from kingdom to dukedom to princedom and so on. He'd help people. He had saved so many people.

And now, this should be all over.

Charles tugged at the ropes tying him to a stake. There was wood and straw all around him and people from the town and surrounding villages were all gathered. They'd all come to watch him burn. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out. He wondered which course his life would have taken if he hadn't stolen the tome on that day. What his lifewould have been if he had never listened to Erik.

Lonely and pathetic, he told himself. He had never been any good at lying to himself. For the past two hundred years, this was the first day he had been truly alone. He was all alone on this stake. He had lost the tome. Erik couldn't save him this time.

His fiery death was inevitable.

On a platform near the stake, a red robed priest was standing. He cleared his throat and demanded silence. It took a few more yells until the crowd settled down enough for the priest to read the accusations Charles had been found guilty of. Black magic. A whore of the devil. Tempter of the young and innocent. Bewitching cows, men, women, children. Poisoning the wells of at least five settlements. Even one of them alone enough to burn him alive.

Charles shivered as the priest took the old tome out of a chest and held it up for every one of the gathered people to see. However, that wasn't what Charles was seeing. All he could see was the vague silhouette of Erik, standing beside the priest and leaning to him to whisper ideas in his ear and make him do his bidding. Charles sighed. Now, he could feel tears of regret well up in his eyes. The demon was already looking for a new human to tempt with power and magic.

The low thump of something heavy hitting wood made him look up again. The priest was now holding a torch, raising it high to again demonstrate his powers to the peasants, before throwing it onto the pile of dry wood around the stake. And yet the thump Charles had heard hadn't been another torch. It had been the tome. _Erik_ , he thought with a pang of guilt. With eyes filled with tears, he looked at his demon, the friend.

“I couldn't watch you die alone,” Erik whispered. He cupped Charles' face in his hands. “I guess I grew too accustomed to you. Please, Charles, don't cry.”

Charles shook his head. He brushed some of his tears off on Erik's hands. The flames had started licking at the stake by now, creeping closer and consuming everything on their way. He should have been hot, but Charles couldn't feel a thing besides Erik's hands on his cheeks. “You didn't leave me,” he whispered. “You didn't leave me.”

“I never could,” the demon replied. The fire had reached the book now, and Charles could see it starting to burn, could see his friend, the only being to come close to his heart, start to wither like burned paper. “I never could leave you. Today is the day I finally find peace.”

Flashes of memories ghosted through Charles' mind. He could see woods he' never seen before, see a young man hunting, flirting, crossing a druid. He felt confusion, agony, loneliness. Tears rolled down his cheeks, leaving light trails on his soot covered face. But he also felt warmth, saw himself on the first day he had touched the tome from the demon's point of view. He felt the excitement of knowing that this lowly young monk might just be the one. Feeling the certainty that he was.

“Thank you, Charles,” Erik said. His voice was but a faint whisper, the tome almost gone, consumed by the flames threatening to consume Charles as well. So be it, Charles thought. At least, he wouldn't be alone for long today.

“Let me return the favor, Charles. You set me free. It's on me to set you free as well.” Charles should have been in agony by now. But all he could feel were Erik's soft lips on his and he let out a sigh. Only to continue breathing out and out and out, pouring all the air in his lungs into Erik.

The tome was gone when his last breath left Charles. The flames reached only a body, consumed nothing more than an empty shell. A wind sprang up, kindling to the fire and taking some of the ashes with it. It was a merry breeze, going far and wide, seeing to bright days in the future.


End file.
